Intelligence_ From Secrets to Policy - Mark M. Lowenthal [138]
The president and an administration’s senior political appointees define success as the advancement of their agenda. Even though a broad continuity exists in U.S. foreign policy, each administration interprets goals individually and fosters initiatives that are uniquely its own. The success of an administration’s agenda must be demonstrable in ways that are easily comprehended, because its successes are expected to have a political dividend. This is not as crass as it sounds. National security policy is created within a political system and process, the ultimate rewards of which are election and reelection to national office. Finally, policy makers expect support for their policies from the permanent bureaucracy.
The intelligence community defines its goals differently. Recall the three wishes posed by Sherman Kent (see chap. 6). The intelligence community also wants to maintain its objectivity regarding policy. Intelligence officials do not want to become, or even to be seen as becoming, advocates for policies other than those that directly affect their activities. Only by maintaining their distance from policy can they hope to produce intelligence that is objective. But objectivity is not always easily achieved. To cite one example, Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) George J. Tenet (1997-2004) was intimately involved in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in October 1998. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) took responsibility for creating a security relationship between the two sides. As a result, the CIA had a vested interest in the outcome of the agreement, not because of any intelligence it had produced but because it had become a participant. In this sort of case, legitimate questions can be raised about the potential effect on subsequent analyses of the implementation of the agreement. Will analysts feel free to report that security arrangements are failing, if that is the case, knowing that their own agency is charged with implementing these same arrangements? The answer may be yes, but it is subject to serious question.
The policy maker-intelligence community relationship changes the longer the policy makers stay in office. At the outset of their relationship, policy makers tend to be more impressed and more accepting of the intelligence they receive. Even for policy makers who are returning to government service, albeit in different and usually more senior positions, this tends to be true. However, as the policy makers become more familiar with the issues for which they are responsible and with the available intelligence, they tend to have higher expectations and to become more demanding.
To some, the nature of the relationship between the DCI and the president also became a factor. Tenet enjoyed what was probably the closest relationship of any DCI to a president, usually seeing George W. Bush at least five or six days a week, and sometimes several times a day. This began on the president’s taking office in 2001, when he said he wanted daily briefings from the DCI. This was a dramatic change from the situation under Bill Clinton, when the DCI saw the president much less often. Clinton’s first DCI, R. James Woolsey (1993-1995), left office in frustration over his lack of access. A great deal of the DCI’s authority derived from the perception that he had access to the president when he needed it. So, for Tenet, the increased access to President Bush was a great gain. But some observers questioned whether such increased access had an effect on the DCI’s objectivity. Critics cited Tenet’s enthusiastic report on the likelihood of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq. However, the report by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence said no evidence existed that the intelligence had been politicized.